The Importance of Being Snarky

[frustratedpilot]

I heard a bit of a radio interview the other day, recorded years ago, by the recently departed author David Foster Wallace. One of the concepts he tried to put across is that the use of irony is often just as pretentious as being overly earnest. The way I see it, there's some truth to that. But at the same time, when I approach my own writing, I don't automatically judge it in terms of "am I trying to be ironic". Sometimes the snarkiness is just there. Sometimes you need the snarkiness to expose the earnest concept that otherwise the reader misses. I guess I need more study on the issue.

FP (who wonders when he'll feel like writing fiction "for real" again)